Christmas Projects

I wanted to share some craft ideas for Christmas! Living in the country has some advantages finding great materials to make rustic and natural Christmas decorations.

WREATH AND SWAG

I used natural evergreens from the yard for the wreath and swag. There are two types of cedar, and juniper and shrub holly with berries.

I added some pinecones, ribbon, rustic bells and small branches of painted crape myrtle seed pods. I gave this set as a gift for Christmas.

DEHYDRATED FRUITS

I’m also making dehydrated oranges, lemons and limes. These will be perfect on garland or wreath.

These dried in about 2 days with the food dehydrator. The darker ones were done in an oven and took about a day.

I used wire to string these in clusters of about 4-5 various sizes and colors with small cinnamon sticks. The sticks were easy to drill a hole using a very small drill bit. These also smell really good!

BURLAP STRING ORNAMENT

I’m also trying these burlap string ornaments. These are not difficult to make but can be very messy. The star is made of twigs and burlap string.

CRAYON GLASS ORNAMENTS

I melted Crayola colors into clear glass ornaments. These are really fun to make.

WOOD SLICES

I cut these wood slices out of aged oak firewood. They were easy to cut with a table saw and you can get a lot of slices out of just a few pieces of wood.

The grain gives each one a different character and there are a lot of uses for these.

I cut these slices out of cedar. These have a nice grain and smell really good!

WOODEN CANDLE STICKS

I made these out of a small cedar trunk. They are cut to random heights and drilled to fit a votive candle. They’re very rustic and smell really good.

I also found some LED lights that fit perfectly in place of a votive candle.

THE FINAL DESIGN

I was able to incorporate all the various projects with my traditional ornaments on the tree and mantle.The rustic look and colors really stood out with the burlap string and colored glass wax ornaments. The wood and metal snowflake ornaments were fun to make and gave a nice rustic contrast to all the traditional Christmas ornaments.I really enjoyed all the projects, and they added so much to the Christmas decor. These were all fairly simple and inexpensive projects anyone can do.

That is fantastic Diane! I’m a registered nurse and I worked with an adult outpatient therapy program years ago that did a lot of crafts! It was great therapy and they enjoyed it so much! I loved it too and its a lot of fun! I’ll keep looking and hopefully find some fun projects you might use. That’s so wonderful that you work with special needs and I know they love doing crafts with you!